Potatoes Power The World
It pains me deeply to admit that the word “potato”, often prefixed with a decorative adjective, is used to shame the indolent creatures that line the couches of the world. The reputation of the Potato must not be tarnished thus. Its flowers have held an illustrious place in the hair of Marie Antoinette and the clothes of the French Aristocracy. Its inherent superiority to rice and wheat lies in its tuberous nature---rice and wheat cannot exceed a certain size, since exceeding the weight threshold these plants can bear causes them to snap their necks like the education system snaps ours. The tubers are shamed for their apparent introversion manifesting in the form of underground growth in the plant kingdom, but it is in this hidden growth their power lies. For no stalks snap under the weight of the extra energy they store--they are supported by the ground and protected from the rapacity of the savage land animals that pilfer the above-ground plant bounty in broad daylight. Indeed, according to the historian William H. McNeill, the potato may have very well fueled the rise of the West, feeding its rapidly growing populations(and possibly saving them from famine) and allowing them to colonize most of the world. The idea of the seemingly gluttonous docile-looking Potato powering insidious plans of world domination seems shocking. Maybe it is time to create a supervillain film starring The Potato.
